The present invention relates to endoscope incorporating a solid state image pickup element for picking up images and functioning without mutual interference with other functioning attached to the endoscope means such as a high frequency surgical knife or the like.
There have been proposed various endoscope means incorporating a solid state image pickup means such as charge-coupled devices (CCD) as image pickup means.
When a diseased portion is surgically treated, by a surgical knife coupled with the CCD as an image pickup means, the high frequency electromagnetic waves, of the surgical knife used for cutting the diseased portion, leak to the output signal of each of the receiver elements of the CCD to cause the leaked signal to be recorded and to produce noise in the image display so as to make the image obscure, thereby disadvantageously making observation and optimum surgical treatment difficult.
In addition, when a DC-DC converter having a high conversion efficiency is used for completely insulating the portion of the endoscope means inserted into the body cavity from the power source for safe operation, the image may be distorted by the contamination of output signals from the receiver elements with high frequency electromagnetic waves output by the DC-DC converter.
Furthermore, when the endoscope means is equipped with an ultrasonic vibrator as an ultrasonic endoscope means for enabling ultrasonic diagnosis, the output signals from the ultrasonic vibrator may be mixed disadvantageously into the output signals from the optical image pickup receiver elements.